I couldn't squash them even if I knew I would grow such a huge and
splendid national character, and such a power for good, that they would
give me a gold-leaf Pamela Memorial in Kensington Gardens with a
lightning conductor, and ten lines in the _London Guide Book_ all to
myself.
*XV*
I have lost my job, and the little Russian tailoress presses my skirt
every day and has lent me a pound.
Russia doesn't seem a lucky country for me; the cinema proprietor was a
young Russian Jew, and when the August orders about Russians serving
came up he got five months' exemption, and now he's joined up and the
cinema has been turned into a Y.M.C.A. canteen. I help them two nights a
week.
It was funny; the other day there were a lot of men expected in. It's
just outside the station, and often we get officers, and an officer in
Walter Markham's regiment came in. I knew it was his battalion. The
officer was just home on leave. I asked him if he knew Captain Markham.
"Used to be under him," he said. "Went West, poor chap! Died in a
hospital somewhere up North."
"Are you sure he died?" I said.
"Positive. He had a sudden relapse. Ballyntine, one of our senior
officers, was pipped at the same time and got sent to the same hospital.
He was there when Markham died. He's rejoined since; he's out there
now. Why? Did you know Markham?"
"He was a great friend of a friend of mine."
"Jolly decent chap," the young officer said.
I thought it such an accurate epitaph. He was a jolly decent chap. I
turned away because my eyes were so full of tears.
If he had recovered and I had married him I could never, never have made
him happy. I should have been one of those wives who suddenly look at
their husbands with vacant eyes, and have thoughts they cannot tell when
they are asked--you see, Cheneston Cromer is with me for keeps, the
memory of him will never go, and I know that often I should wander away
from Walter with Cheneston, and be sorry to come back, and Walter was
too great a dear to treat like that, a very gallant and honest English
gentleman.
Regina Merolovitch has found me a "job" at twenty-five shillings a week.
She says it is only temporary, and soon I shall find something better;
but I don't know. I am only "honest and willing," and the world seems
overcrowded with honesty and willingness unadorned.
I "do anything" for Madame Cherry, who has a little cherry-coloured shop
with grey fittings and purple hangings in the West End. Sometimes I am
in the showroom, sometimes I make tea for the girls, sometimes I pick
pins off the showroom floor, sometimes I "match" things at the big
London stores, sometimes I take things home to customers.
I marvel at the prices people pay for clothes. The people who fluff in
and say, "I must have some little cheap thing, madame," seem to pay most
and buy most.
Madame made a wonderful "little cheap thing" the other day--black tulle
over blue tulle, and all of it edged with blue beetles' wings, and blue
tissue round the waist to match.
It was done in a violent hurry because "he" was coming home on leave;
"he" was staying at the Savoy with her for a few days, and then they
were going down to their country seat when he had seen about his kit.